GOP slams Biden 'chains' remark

Vice President Joe Biden touched off an uproar when he said Tuesday Republicans would put Americans “back in chains” — a remark that drew immediate criticism from the GOP and prompted Mitt Romney to tell President Barack Obama to take his campaign of “division and anger and hate back to Chicago.”

“Look at what they [Republicans] value, and look at their budget. And look what they’re proposing. [Romney] said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks write their own rules — unchain Wall Street,” Biden said a rally in Danville, Va. “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.”

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The comment drew a smattering of laughs and some noises from the 1,000 or so in the racially mixed crowd of supporters that appeared to be roughly half African-American.

The vice president’s comment in the battleground state that Barack Obama and Biden carried in 2008 immediately drew a barrage of criticism from Republicans and later in the day from Romney himself.

At a campaign event Tuesday night in Chillicothe, Ohio, Romney said Obama’s “campaign and his surrogates have made wild and reckless accusations that disgrace the office of the Presidency. Another outrageous charge came a few hours ago in Virginia. And the White House sinks a little bit lower.”

“Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago,” Romney said.

Earlier, the Romney camp called the Biden “chains” comment a “new low” for Obama’s campaign.

“After weeks of slanderous and baseless accusations leveled against Governor Romney, the Obama Campaign has reached a new low,” Romney press secretary Andrea Saul said in a statement. “The comments made by the Vice President of the United States are not acceptable in our political discourse and demonstrate yet again that the Obama Campaign will say and do anything to win this election. President Obama should tell the American people whether he agrees with Joe Biden’s comments.”

At a later event in Wytheville, Va., Biden brought up the attacks from the Romney campaign over his remarks.

“I am told when I made that comment earlier today in Danville, Va., the Romney campaign put out a Tweet …went on the air, went on the airwaves saying, ‘Biden was outrageous in saying’ — I think I said, instead of unshackled, unchained — ‘outrageous to say that!” Biden said, mocking the Romney campaign.

Biden noted that Vice Presidential hopeful Paul Ryan and House Speaker John Boehner have previsouly used the word “unshackle” in talking about the economy. “The last time these guys unshackled the economy, to use their term, they put the middle class in shackles,” Biden said. “That’s how we got where we are.”

Cutter added that Obama “probably agrees with Joe Biden’s sentiments” and noted the vice president was “using a metaphor to talk about what’s going to happen.”

“I appreciate the faux outrage from the Romney campaign. But if you want to talk about the use of words, then take a look at Mitt Romney’s stump speech where he basically calls the president ‘un-American,’” Cutter said.

Cutter issued a statement later on Tuesday in an effort to clarify Biden’s “metaphor.”